Adding day. The book that hides me
From Her itself menaces now
When evening lamp shadows, cast through
A yellowed parchment shade alight
On its tall atlas spine. Four-legged
Beast, crouched on my hands and knees on
The sandstone carpet, I dare not
Reach forward toward its questions, Her
Question: What was I? What am I
To be? as reddening shadows
Fall across a desert's chilling,
Unaverted face, as a hushed,
Syllable falls, unanswering-
The Mother, waiting late, disturbed–
The troublesome riddle of breath.
AUTUMN, 1970
Golden pears hanging
Over full, wild roses:
The land in the lake.
Behold the far swans,
Drunk with the images
They kiss, bills dunking
Into dark water.
What pictures shall we drink
In the midland cold?
Summer's shadow lies
As
if unpromised, dry
Along silent walls;
Windward we sit, watched
From behind pennants that
Slap the windy air.
John Hollander
